


close encounter of the second kind

by theprimrosepath



Series: a small cuban restaurant [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ADHD Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autistic Keith (Voltron), Chance Meetings, Lance owns a bright blue convertible from his college days, M/M, Mentioned Hypothetical Car Accidents, One Shot, Paramedic Keith (Voltron), Unresolved, also there's an umbrella, cheesy black skinny jeans get soaked and teach Keith a lesson in clothing choices on rainy days, it's a hospital parking lot!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:39:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprimrosepath/pseuds/theprimrosepath
Summary: Rainy days suck. Especially when they involve getting nearly run over by a maniac in a lightning blue car.





	close encounter of the second kind

Sometimes, Keith’s glad he goes the extra mile to regularly haggle for a parking spot—one in the row located most conveniently close to the hospital building. (Medical professionals bargain so many things in exchange for favors. Or chocolate. Or coffee.) Such as today, as he sighs and turns up the speed of his windshield wipers again, his favorite playlist turned up to blastissimo against a backdrop of hammering rain.

 

It’s pouring so heavily that the city around him’s been reduced to tall gray smudges, thunder rumbling in the distance even through his music, and he can already imagine the accidents that might get called in before the storm’s end. Keith taps the side of his steering wheel pensively as he turns into the parking lot. Most of them are car accidents, and half of them aren’t pretty.

 

But then he reaches his parking spot and he thinks, _How about a rear collision with a trunk that looks like a metal sandwich?_

 

Someone has parked in his spot.

 

Keith stares at the nondescript blue sedan as if glaring harder might make it disappear and takes a mental note of its cheery New York license plate. If it belongs to any of his coworkers, he _will_ find out, and there will be hell to pay.

 

There’s an umbrella in his back seat, of course, but he’s still irritated as he drives away in search of space. That was _his_ parking spot, dammit.

 

He eventually pulls into what might as well be half a mile away on the other side of the lot, and Keith grumbles as he steps out with his umbrella into the storm and slams his car door shut behind him. Hospitals and their shitty parking space. Even standing still, he can already feel stray drops of rain pattering against the fabric of his jeans, the inch-thick currents of water trying to seep their way through the soles of his boots. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid.

 

A bright blue convertible speeds past right in front of him—dangerously fast, he can tell in the split second he registers it in his field of vision—and splatters his lower half with a deluge of cold asphalt water.

 

Great. Just fucking great.

 

Keith grumbles louder as he aggressively shoves the discomfort into the back of his mind, a few choice curse words aimed at the owner of that ridiculously vivid blue car, and starts striding through the storm. The faster he can get inside, the faster he can change into his uniform and hopefully leave his soaking pants somewhere in a closet to dry.

 

“Hey! Hey, wait—!”

 

Keith looks back with a frown to see a man splashing his way hurriedly towards him, stuffing his keys in a pocket of his bright orange raincoat. He glances back further and spots the blue convertible directly behind the stranger, parked only a few spaces away from his own, and scowls.

 

Ah. The driver of that neon blue car.

 

He’s tempted to start walking even faster—but the chafing is already horrible, and his hesitation’s cost him. The man’s too close now to make an escape possible, and Keith lets out a long breath before turning fully to wait for him.

 

He’s overestimated the orange of the man’s coat in this rain, at least; the color of his car hadn’t helped. He can see that it’s a bit faded actually, this close up (perhaps it’s old?), and paired with matching orange galoshes scuffed up at the toes. The stranger’s brown hair lies plastered on his scalp, making his head look comically carrot-shaped, and he’s panting by the time he reaches the shelter of Keith’s umbrella. It’s not terribly big, and Keith finds himself shifting away a fraction as Blue Car Man ends up closer than he’d like.

 

“Thanks,” Blue Car Man says, and runs a hand through his hair. “For waiting up. I forgot my umbrella.”

 

Keith doesn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at him, leaning away a bit further, but against his wishes, his scowl relaxes from an ‘are you fucking kidding me’ to a mere ‘I really have to deal with this?’; tufts of Blue Car Man’s hair are sticking up where he’d dragged his fingers through like a terrifying, award-worthy case of bedhead. “Sure. You soaked my jeans.”

 

Blue Car Man cocks his head, clearly confused, and Keith clarifies, “Your car. You drove right past me—way too fast for a hospital parking lot when it’s raining, by the way.”

 

His face immediately looks a bit horrified. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, glancing down at Keith’s black jeans and seeing that, yes, they were indeed soaked through. “I’m really in a hurry right now. My sister’s giving birth. It’s seven weeks early.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah. Can we start walking?”

 

Without another word, Keith starts walking towards the hospital again, and Blue Car Man follows quickly. Labor and delivery isn’t exactly his area, but he knows that seven weeks premature means alarming things, and he can’t exactly hate a complete stranger—who seems to be around his age—for a pair of wet jeans. Although speeding around a hospital parking lot is unequivocally a terrible idea. He has enough trouble delivering patients without maniacs in lightning blue cars thrown into the mix.

 

“Really sorry about the pants again,” Blue Car Man says suddenly. (He should really stop calling him ‘Blue Car Man.’) It’s accompanied by jingling, and Keith looks over to see the car keys back in the man’s hands. He seems to be fidgeting with them nervously. “Why are you here? You don’t seem to be hurrying for anything.”

 

“I work here.”

 

“Oh.”

 

The stranger fiddles more with his keys (stimming?), glancing up ahead to the hospital with a tight frown, and Keith takes the opportunity to study him more closely. He’s a few inches taller, judging by how he’s hunched over slightly to stay beneath the spokes of the umbrella, and his sharp, currently frowning jawline tapers into a narrow chin. His fingers match his features, thin and nimble, and his skin is a soft, dusty brown that reminds him of a couple of his Puerto Rican coworkers. But then the man suddenly turns back to him as he’s looking back up, and Keith slides his eyes away so fast—catching a glimpse of pensive, dark blue eyes—that he’s one hundred percent sure he was obvious as hell.

 

There’s a beat of silence, and then the man asks, “You don’t happen to work at wherever does childbirth, do you?”

 

Keith shakes his head, painfully aware of the man’s gaze on him, and subconsciously he leans away again an inch. “EMS. I’m a paramedic,” he adds after a second, in case he doesn’t know what EMS means.

 

“Oh. Must be a pretty crazy job.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They fall into silence as they close in on the hospital entrance, and Keith glances back at the man again for a quick second. Fortunately, he seems to be distracted with his thoughts, still playing with the keys in his hands (probably stimming).

 

Unfortunately, he’s good-looking, and Keith can already hear his brother’s voice in his head, accompanied by his smiling, supportive face. _Come on,_ it nags teasingly. _Ask him out. Give him your number. It can’t hurt. He says no, you never see him again. He says yes, well... What do you have to lose?_

 

But he knows exactly what he has to lose. His first few attempts at dating were good enough signs for him to know that it’s really, really not his thing. People stay inconsistent and difficult to figure out, third dates are either a myth or they eventually get fed up with each other, and frankly he never wants a repeat of Joshua again. For all Keith knows, this stranger would end up thinking that he’s “just a confused straight girl” too.

 

They reach the sheltering overhang, and Keith snaps his umbrella shut with little fanfare.

 

“Take the first right, then follow the signs to the maternity ward,” he says as thunder rumbles around them. “Whoever’s at the desk should be able to help you out.”

 

Something big seems about to slip out of his grasp—and Keith shouldn’t even care this much about some stranger he just met who soaked his jeans in essence of parking lot asphalt. He doesn’t even want a boyfriend. Maybe he’s just being stupid. Or maybe the universe will do him a kindness for once, considering everything else that’s happened so far today.

 

The man nods, slipping his car keys back into his pocket. “Okay.”

 

Keith shakes water off of his umbrella and raises an inquisitive eyebrow when he notices the man looking at him, still standing nearby. His chest tightens up, and he doesn’t know if it’s in fear or hope.

 

After a long second, the stranger holds out a hand to him and smiles, almost apologetically. “Thanks for the help, man. And the umbrella space. My name’s Lance.”

 

Keith returns a wry smile and shakes his offered hand, trying carefully to mimic the same amount of pressure. The man— _Lance’s_ grip is soft and warm in the chill of the morning storm, and he knows he’s filing away far too many details. “Keith. I hope your sister and her baby end up all right.”

 

The smile grows into something grateful, and that’s what’s about to slip away. That smile. “Thanks. And I’m still really sorry about your pants.”

 

With that, their hands return to their sides, and Keith shoves his into a still-dry pocket of his jeans in search of the same pressure, flicking the umbrella in his other hand in an echo of sensation. Words are right on the tip of his tongue ( _“It’s fine. Hey, I know you’ve got a big emergency and this is kind of a bad time, but let me give you my number—”_ ), but then the man offers him one more crooked quirk of the lips before turning away and pushing past the hospital doors. His faded orange raincoat flaps around into the first turn right, and Keith gives his umbrella one last vigorous shake as Lance disappears from his life just like that.

 

“Well, goodbye, I guess,” he says aloud to that empty hallway past the glass doors.

 

He shakes his head, bemused at his own silliness, and instead grins a little at Lance’s expense once he realizes that the man will probably be bursting into the maternity ward with hair that looks like a little kid tied it up in five different pigtails, then attacked it with hairspray. Maybe he should’ve warned him before he ran off.

 

Keith ties up his umbrella and takes the first left, walking with deliberate steps to avoid squeaking his boots. He needs to get to work—and, he remembers with an irritated sigh, track down whoever stole his parking spot today.

 

God, are his jeans soaking wet. He has to change soon, before the chafing drives him mad. _Thank you, Lance._

**Author's Note:**

> i can't believe my first voltron fic is just adding to the ridiculously massive klance tag >> like. y'all. but this was pretty self-indulgent and i like it too much to not post it. (hopefully you liked it too!) it doesn't get brought up, but in this au lance is a restaurant owner. it's a pretty sweet, casual, inexpensive cuban place in queens.
> 
> shoutout to [thecookiemonster77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCookieMonster77) for letting me bounce modern au ideas off of her (and for bouncing some right back at me)!! y'all should check out her fics wink wonk.
> 
> find me at [@primrose-path-of-dalliance](https://primrose-path-of-dalliance.tumblr.com) on tumblr, where i post fandom things and the occasional bit of writing.
> 
> (and in case you were wondering, yes, keith is trans. :) left untagged since it's only alluded to once.)


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